


I recognize this air

by wooden_trellis



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: F/F, HS marching band au, also FLAYN is here, band au, because i needed another flute and immediately thought of flayn, hi i did band for four years and hated it and now life is existential so ., i'll probably write more about this, like to be clear though they are dating, the tiki/say'ri is kinda minor i'm not rly sure what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:47:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27038176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wooden_trellis/pseuds/wooden_trellis
Summary: Tiki watches the band run through basics block from atop the press box, tapping a tune with her fingers, completely and utterly bored out of her mind.or 2300 words of a hyperspecific knowledge i have applied to the awakening kids
Relationships: Chiki | Tiki/Say'ri
Kudos: 2





	I recognize this air

**Author's Note:**

> Me writing a piece romanticizing being a high school marching band instructor when I, in high school, adamantly hated all of my band instructors (they did not give us water breaks. it was sick, super awesome. technically not illegal even though rehearsals were 6 hours long sometimes).
> 
> also for ages: the 2nd gen kids are hs aged, their parents are like 40s 50s. parent aged. tiki and say'ri are weird in the game i think because they're first gen but you recruit them at the same time as the second gens (also they don't support w/ too many people) so i made them in their 20s because they kinda function separately and also i wanted them in their 20s bc they're marching band instructors. also for Frederick's last name i just took the last name of his VA lol

Tiki hums along, watching the band pantomime their parts with their hands to the recording blasting over the PA system. It’s tedious to watch at best, but Tiki isn’t a visuals instructor for a reason—things like dots and positions and formations are all options, choices that can be made or not made to equal satisfaction.

The band finishes, up to set, uh, whatever it was. Twenty? Fourteen? They’re supposed to form lines here, a big bombastic moment in the piece. Tiki must begrudgingly admit it works to add to the effect.

“It would work better if they actually formed the lines properly,” Frederick says, because she said that out loud, and motions for her to hand over the microphone so he can start critiquing the line formations, how the 40 yard line are all together now but couldn’t form even the vaguest hint of a line until they reached the hold. Mark accidentally skipped over a beat and Yarne keeps rushing and yes Cynthia we all know about the drum corp you marched in but you’re starting on the wrong foot and you need to focus please and do it right.

And one of the trombones standing behind her scoffs back a laugh and Cynthia turns, glaring (probably, Tiki is up so high and it’s so hot that they’re all really just little squiggles, the impression of people), ready to fight already because doesn’t Severa (of course) know that she’s been so  _ rude _ all day and that’s it—the last straw. And Severa laughs again and says “what are you going to do about it?” like the answer isn’t either challenge her to a music contest (a duel, she calls them) or throw her trumpet to the side and jump Severa right now. And all throughout Frederick is sighing and desperately trying to get anybody to listen to him with half started sentences that everyone is pointedly ignoring because it’s 12pm on a Saturday in the middle of July and everyone wants to go home where there’s AC and nobody to comment on how large your stride is and they haven’t had a water break for the last—ah.

Tiki lunges for the mic, pulling it out of Frederick’s hands with ease—he’s given up, for now. “Ten minute break,” Tiki says. The whole field shifts under the tension easing off of everyone’s shoulders. Severa and Cynthia are still arguing, but Cynthia’s no longer trying to shove her trumpet into the hands of the rookie standing next to her, so that probably means they won’t fight. Probably. She hands the microphone back to Frederick.

“Sectionals after, so make sure to warm-up after you’ve had water,” he announces over the microphone.

“Ten minutes,” Tiki intones, pulling herself up from the railing. They’re sitting on top of the press box of the football stadium, with a speaker hooked up to the mic because Frederick has too much pride to ask for someone to turn on the stadium’s actual PA system and neither of them can figure out anything worth a damn about technology on their own. The railing around the top of the press box is two bars of thick aluminum cylinders. Tiki spends most of visual block sitting up here, resting her head on the lower of the two bars and trying not to fall asleep.

“Do you have a timer going?”

“One one-thousand one, one one-thousand two.” Frederick is unamused. Ah well. He has no appreciation for good humor. Tiki has the good sense to slip her sandals back on before climbing down the stairs, traipsing through the scorching bleachers down to the field.

Most of the kids are sitting on the sidelines, alternating fanning themselves with their music books and taking long drinks of water. Two of the woodwinds have stolen color guard sabers, brandishing them like fencing rapiers and taking turns trying to land a hit on each other. Olivia looks utterly mortified, desperately trying to get them to stop.

Cynthia’s given up on trying to fight Severa, electing to instead, perhaps, annoy her to death.

“But your dad, like, owns an ice cream joint.”

“Yeah?”

“So why can’t he bring ice cream down for everyone here.”

“Who would pay for it?”

“Nobody?”

Severa stares at her for a long moment. “You have the worst business sense of anybody I’ve ever met.”

“I make up for it in friendship sense!”

“What the hell does that even mean?”

Tiki tunes them out, because if she listens for too long she gets too sucked in, and then must remember she is no longer a high-schooler along with them, but a beleaguered adult, suffering her way through the slings and sorrows of, like, life and shit.

Twenty-five is a hell of a year for her next existential crisis. High schoolers exist in their own orbit and its gravitational pull is killer.

Only the drumline are doing anything productive with their time, a mix between the few simply tikatak-ing their way through parts together, to Gerome, who still has his drums on and is running through part of the show with felt covered mallets.

Say’ri passes by, to talk to Frederick about how the percussion should behave in the visual in set 6. They don’t play, so they can hypothetically participate, but given the size of the quads, kneeling and standing upright in such a small amount of time is cumbersome, to put it lightly.

She nods at Tiki, a single firm gesture, professional and impersonal. They had agreed to it, although Tiki saw no reason to be discreet. They were adults, not paid members of the school’s teaching staff, essentially volunteers who were paid a small stipend for their help, not enough to even cover the costs of travel to and from shows. Beholden to no HR department and no school policy.

But Say’ri had pointedly brought up the concept of a lecture from Frederick, who had once almost sat the entire marching band down to explain the dangers of inter-section dating, until Lucina and Cynthia had caught wind of it from their parents, sat him down and explained that under no circumstances was he, a (according to Cynthia) “grown ass man” allowed to talk to teenagers about the relationships they could or could not be in. It was not so unbelievable he would find their relationship dangerous to the overall success of the band, and even far less unbelievable that he would take the time to make his perspective not only known, but properly understood.

Tiki grins and responds with an emphatic peace sign. Nailed it. Cool as a cucumber. Nobody suspects a thing.

She finally reaches her destination. The winds tend to take longer breaks in a disjointed pile, woodwinds and brass intermingling together. The entire low brass section is lying supine between the 25 and 30 yard line, and a couple trumpets and horns are trying, futilely, to do a four person push-up.

“They’re at it already,” Brady says, the only member of his section not lying down.

“And they’ve roped the clarinets into it, too,” Nah laments.

“This is why the flutes are my favorite,” Tiki remarks.

“It is time to start?” Tiki shakes her head.

“Five more minutes.”

“I would think you’d prefer the saxophones more.” Tiki looks down at Flayn, sitting cross legged with her flute half twisted together.

“Kindred spirits,” Laurent agrees, sitting next to her.

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“Everyone knows who hid all the mallets before the home show last year,” Nah says.

“And yet nobody could prove it. I have the perfect alibi.”

“Kindred spirits,” Nah echoes.

“Plus you were the one who spiked the punch at the last family reunion.” Ah. Damn Flayn, her uh, whatever the hell they were to each other. Cousin’s kid.

“Anyone could have done that.” Flayn looks wholly unimpressed with Tiki’s excuse. “I mean it! Maybe Nagi did it.”

“You’re going to accuse aunt Nagi of spiking the punch?”

Tiki waves a hand. “Fae?”

“Fae is six.”

“Seteth could have done it.”

“Father dedicates five minutes per day to fun. Any more than that and he’ll combust.”

“Look, anyone could have done it. Not just me. Sothis seemed to have  _ too _ convenient an alibi, if you’re asking me.”

“You’re accusing my grandmother of spiking the punch at a family reunion.”

“Details,” Tiki remarks, airily, and leaves out the part where most of her penchant for mischief comes from her and Rhea, ages eight and eleven respectively, followed Sothis around just a little  _ too _ closely at family gatherings. It’s a shame Rhea had ended up so straight-laced. Boring.

“You’re an honorary saxophonist,” Laurent says solemnly.

“Who is?” The saxophones had arrived, along with the high winds they’d been roping into  _ something _ , and Brady is leaving to join his section because ten minutes marching band time ended fifteen minutes ago real life time, and Brass need to get set up and into basics block because that’s how Frederick has them do music practice.

“Tiki,” Flayn answers from the ground.

“So you want to join the saxophones, is it?” Mark asks, grinning in a way that, if Tiki didn’t know better, would seem pleasant.

“Makes sense, of course, given how grand the saxophone is within the music family tree,” Morgan agrees, closing his eyes and nodding. He holds his chin with one hand.

“But you must understand,” Mark continues. “That we have rather  _ exacting _ standards when it comes to membership.”

“Lucky for you, we have a bit of a vacancy right now, after what happened to Nah last time.”

“I had to help percussion set up for a month. I’m never helping you again.”

“We need someone to get the horse out of Mr. Hebert’s office.”

Tiki hums. “What’s in it for me?”

“Is being an honorary saxophonist not reward enough?” Mark gasps.

“We’ll actually have our instruments set up on time for the rest of the season,” Morgan says at the same time.

“Siblings always betray you,” Mark groans, glaring at her brother. He just grins sheepishly back.

“Freddy is a closely guarded relic. It’d be hard for me to get at him, even as an instructor.” Tiki rubs her chin, watching the twins faces’ fall. “ _ But _ ,” she pauses, simply for the effect of it. “He would be much more willing to follow me on a wild nonsense goose chase rather than one of the students, once we get close to the opening show. I could definitely pull him away from his office for a good little while.”

“Will you?”

“If you start setting up on time.” Mark lets out a cheer far too triumphant for what they’ve just done. Like she’s won the lottery, or they won first place at Nationals, or they just killed an ancient resurrected dragon that seeks to destroy the world.

“I told Lucina we could do it,” Morgan says with a grin.

“This is for Lucina?”

“Of course! It’s a tradition,” Mark says with a nod.

“If it was for Lucina, I wouldn’t have needed any pot sweetening to do it,” Tiki remarks. She also leaves out the part where she already knew the tradition and would have said yes even if they couldn’t think of anything to offer her in return. It was her first official season on staff, and it had accidentally become a secret this was her alma mater. Frederick hardly seemed to think of mentioning it, and as far as any of the students could tell, she’d shown up out of the blue one day last October, a friend of the revered percussion instructor. Who was Tiki to burst any sort of assumption they’d made about her by informing them that, tragically, she had the same humble beginnings as everyone else here. 

“Too bad you’ve already agreed to it.” Morgan opens his mouth to protest, but Tiki cuts him off. “Everyone set up, we’re supposed to start rehearsal and Frederick is starting to give us looks. Warmup and be ready to play by the time I’m inside.” That quells the conversation, at least for now, as the rest of the woodwinds scurry to put their instruments together and make it inside to the cafeteria to rehearse.

Tiki follows behind, much slower, humming along to a tune she barely remembers. A marching show far too old that Tiki would prefer not to have burned into her memory the way it is. She fell down a rabbithole last night, memory lane, finding old shows uploaded to YouTube by people with last names she can vaguely recall. Old classmates.

Three more hours of rehearsal. Three more hours and then she can go home and lie down in front of a fan, blast the air conditioner until she’s nice and cool and maybe take a nap too. She had plans to go see an exhibit with Say’ri at Ylisse Museum of Fine Arts, some traveling exhibit about Fodlan fashion at the turn of the last millenium. She doesn’t quite remember, but Say’ri seemed interested. Really, she just used any excuse for them to visit the museum again. Tiki hardly minds. She likes mimicking every statue’s pose. She also likes how animated and excited Say’ri gets about everything, listening to her prattle on about some painter she’s never heard of or why they conserve some such piece of art with the large gash in it, but that’s neither here nor there.

Maybe they were supposed to visit the museum today, but probably not, because Say’ri usually has what amounts to a two hour cooldown post band rehearsals, especially the long Saturday ones. Always poring over the music or dots, rewriting a part so that it’s easier or sounds less muddled because it’s a chore to ask high schoolers to move straight from triplets to duples to quintuples, while marching no less, and then she ends up calling Robin because these things can never be simple, and what is the pit doing here because she doesn’t want anything the drumline is doing to overshadow them. It’s a percussion feature after all, not a battery feature.

So probably, Tiki decides in the middle of music rehearsal, conducting the woodwinds through their first feature and playing the usual game of “saxes your volume is fine. Clarinets you’re pointed at the ground we need  _ more _ ,” that they were going to the museum tomorrow. Maybe they were getting takeout tonight, or maybe—or, well, maybe who cares. She’ll get there when she gets there. Whatever they’re doing, they’re doing it. No point dwelling too much.

**Author's Note:**

> the horse is named after frederick. no he did not name it
> 
> i've put far more thought into this than i cared to, so i'll probably return to this again sometime soon, but for posterity sake:  
> instructors  
> Battery: Say’ri  
> Woodwinds: tiki  
> Brass/band director: Frederick  
> Color Guard: Olivia  
> Pit: Robin
> 
> Lucina—drum major/French Horn  
> Severa—trombone  
> Owain—trumpet  
> Inigo—clarinet  
> Cynthia—Trumpet  
> Noire—clarinet/bass clarinet  
> Nah--flute  
> Brady—Euph/baritone  
> Kjelle--tuba  
> Gerome—percussion (quads)  
> Mark(f)—alto saxophone  
> Morgan(m)—tenor saxophone  
> Laurent—clarinet  
> Yarne—oboe


End file.
